During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of
its government.

This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless
satellites of the social-chauvinists. Among the former, for instance, is
Semkovsky of the Organising Committee (No. 2 of its Izvestia),
and among the latter, Trotsky and
Bukvoyed,[2]
and Kautsky in
Germany. To desire Russia’s defeat, Trotsky writes, is “an
uncalled-for and absolutely unjustifiable concession to the political
methodology of social-patriotism, which would replace the revolutionary
struggle against the war and the conditions causing it, with an
orientation—highly arbitrary in the present conditions—towards
the lesser evil” (Nashe Slovo No. 105).

This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always
justifies opportunism. A “revolutionary struggle against the
war” is merely an empty and meaning less exclamation, something at
which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it
means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in
wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand
this. Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government
indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating
such a defeat. ("Discerning reader”: note that this does not
mean “blowing up bridges”, organising unsuccessful strikes in
the war industries, and ·in general helping the government defeat
the revolutionaries.)

The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple
issue. It seems to him that to desire
Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed
and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or
rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) But Trotsky
regards this as the “methodology of social-patriotism"! To help
people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution
(Sotsial Demokrat
No. 40)[1]
made it clear, that in all
imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its
own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while
Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all
the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom)
blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany
or Russia can win” (Izvestia No. 2).

Take the example of the Paris Commune. France was defeated by Germany but
the workers were defeated by Bismarck and Thiers! Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky
done a little thinking, they would have realised that they have
adopted the viewpoint on the war held by governments and the
bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe to the “political
methodology of social-patriotism”, to use Trotsky’s pretentious
language.

A revolution in wartime means civil war; the conversion of a war
between governments into a civil war is, on the one hand, facilitated by
military reverses ("defeats") of governments; on the other hand, one
cannot actually strive for such a conversion without thereby
facilitating defeat.

The reason why the chauvinists (including the Organising Committee and the
Chkheidze group) repudiate the defeat “slogan” is that
this slogan alone implies a consistent call for revolutionary
action against one’s own government in wartime. Without such action,
millions of ultra-revolutionary phrases such as a war against “the
war and the conditions, etc." are not worth a brass farthing.

Anyone who would in all earnest refute the “slogan” of defeat
for one’s own government in the imperialist war should prove one of three
things: (1) that the war of 1914-15 is not reactionary, or (2) that a
revolution stemming from that war is impossible, or (3) that co-ordination
and mutual aid are possible between revolutionary movements in
all the
belligerent countries. The third point is particularly important to
Russia, a most backward country, where an immediate socialist revolution
is impossible. That is why the Russian Social-Democrats had to be the
first to advance the “theory and practice” of the defeat
“slogan”. The tsarist government was perfectly right in
asserting that the agitation conducted by the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour group in the Duma—the sole instance in the
International, not only of parliamentary opposition but of genuine
revolutionary anti-government agitation among the masses—that this
agitation has weakened Russia’s “military might” and is likely
to lead to its defeat. This is a fact to which it is foolish to close
one’s eyes.

The opponents of the defeat slogan are simply afraid of themselves when
they refuse to recognise the very obvious fact of the inseparable link
between revolutionary agitation against the government and helping bring
about its defeat.

Are co-ordination and mutual aid possible between the Russian movement,
which is revolutionary in the bourgeois- democratic sense, and th
socialist movement in the West? No socialist who has publicly spoken on
the matter during the last decade has doubted this, the movement among the
Austrian proletariat after October 17,
1905,[3]actually proving
it possible.

Ask any Social-Democrat who calls himself an internationalist whether or
not he approves of an understanding between the Social-Democrats of the
various belligerent countries on joint revolutionary action against all
belligerent governments. Many of them will reply that it is impossible, as
Kautsky has done (Die Neue Zeit, October 2, 1914), thereby
fully proving his social-chauvinism. This, on the one hand, is a
deliberate and vicious lie, which clashes with the generally known facts
and the Basle Manifesto. On the other hand, if it were true, the
opportunists would be quite right in many respects!

Many will voice their approval of such an understanding. To this we shall
say: if this approval is not hypocritical, it is ridiculous to think that,
in wartime and for the conduct of a war, some “formal”
understanding is necessary, such as the election of representatives, the
arrangement of a meeting, the signing of an agreement, and the choice of
the day
and hour! Only the Semkovskys are capable of thinking so. An understanding
on revolutionary action even in a single country, to say nothing
of a number of countries, can be achieved only by the force of
the example of serious revolutionary action, by
launching such action and developing it. However, such
action cannot be launched without desiring the defeat of the government,
and without contributing to such a defeat. The conversion of the
imperialist war into a civil war cannot be “made”, any more
than a revolution can be “made”. It develops out of a
number of diverse phenomena, aspects, features, characteristics and
consequences of the imperialist war. That development is
impossible without a series of military reverses and defeats of
governments that receive blows from their own oppressed classes.

To repudiate the defeat slogan means allowing one’s revolutionary ardour
to degenerate into an empty phrase, or sheer hypocrisy.

What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of
“neither victory nor defeat” (Semkovsky in Izvestia
No. 2; also the entire Organising Committee in No. 1).
This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of
the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the
level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this
slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their
positions"), and not to the level of the struggle of the
oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the
chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are
always ready to say—and do say to the people—that
they are “only” fighting “against
defeat”. “The significance of our August 4 vote was that we
are not for war but against defeat," David, a leader of the
opportunists, writes in his book. The Organising Committee, together with
Bukvoyed and Trotsky, stand on fully the same ground as David
when they defend the “neither-victory nor-defeat” slogan.

On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class
truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed
classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is
impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie,
one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a
blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s
information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of
one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither
victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of
the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in
practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian
policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent
countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the
imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not
verbal disruption of the “class truce”, of acceptance of the
class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the
difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie
in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or
striven for, without desiring the defeat of one’s own government
and without contributing to that defeat.

When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of
a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, no doubt correctly from their
own point of view, that this would be high treason, and that
Social-Democrats would be dealt with as traitors. That is true, just as it
is true that fraternisation in the trenches is high treason. Those who
write against “high treason”, as Bukvoyed does, or against the
“disintegration of Russia”, as Semkovsky does, are adopting
the bourgeois, not the proletarian point of view. A proletarian
cannot deal a class blow at his government or hold out (in fact)
a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign”
country which is at war with “our side”, without
committing “high treason”, without contributing
to the defeat, to the disintegration of his “own”,
imperialist “Great” Power.

Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor
defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is
a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an -enemy to
proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing ·governments, of the
present-day ruling classes.

Let us look at the question from yet another angle. The war cannot but
evoke among the masses the most turbulent sentiments, which upset the
usual sluggish state of mass mentality. Revolutionary tactics are
impossible if they are not adjusted to these new turbulent
sentiments.

What are the main currents of these turbulent sentiments? They are:
(1) Horror and despair. Hence, a growth of religious feeling. Again the
churches are crowded, the reactionaries joyfully declare. “Wherever
there is suffering there is religion," says the arch-reactionary
Barr s. He is right, too.
(2) Hatred of the “enemy”, a sentiment that is carefully
fostered by the bourgeoisie (not so much by the priests), arid is of
economic and political value only to the bourgeoisie.
(3) Hatred of one’s own government and one’s own
bourgeoisie—the sentiment of all class-conscious workers who
understand, on the one hand, that war is a “continuation of the
politics” of imperialism, which they counter by a
“continuation” of their hatred of their class enemy, and, on the
other hand, that “a war against war” is a banal phrase unless
it means a revolution against their own government. Hatred of
one’s own government and one’s own bourgeoisie cannot be aroused unless
their defeat is desired; one cannot be a sincere opponent of a
civil (i.e., class) truce without arousing hatred of one’s own government
and bourgeoisie!

Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan
are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they
do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action
by the working class against their own governments, and do not
wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly
difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist
task. It is the proletariat in the most backward of the belligerent. Great
Powers which, through the medium of their party, have had to
adopt—especially in view of the shameful treachery of the German and
French Social-Democrats— revolutionary tactics that are quite
unfeasible unless they “contribute to the defeat” of their own
government, but which alone lead to a European revolution, to the
permanent peace of socialism, to the liberation of humanity from the
horrors, misery, savagery and brutality now prevailing.

Notes

[3]This refers
to the tsar’s manifesto promulgated on October 17 (30), 1905. It promised
"civil liberties" and a “legislative Duma”. The manifesto was a
concession wrested from the tsarist regime by the revolution, but that
concession by no means decided the fate of the revolution as the liberals
and Mensheviks claimed, The Bolsheviks exposed the real meaning of the
Manifesto and called upon the masses to continue the struggle and overthrow
the autocracy.

The first Russian revolution exerted a great
revolutionising influence on the working-class movement in other countries,
in particular in Austria-Hungary. Lenin pointed out that the news about the
tsar’s concession and his manifesto, with its promise of
“liberties”, “played a decisive part in the final victory
of universal suffrage in Austria”.

Mass demonstrations took place in Vienna and other
industrial cities in Austria-Hungary. In Prague barricades were put up. As a
result, universal suffrage was introduced in Austria.